


The Things that Happen Off Screen

by Waxwing



Category: V (1983), V: The Final Battle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-28 03:23:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6313444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waxwing/pseuds/Waxwing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Recently finally saw V after meaning to do so for years. While I generally liked it I felt that there were a lot of story elements that could have used more breathing room. I understand that it was a MINI series so they only had so much time in which to tell the story but that hasn't stopped me from thinking up little scenes that I feel would have added a little more dimension to it. Decided to write them down here because I have to get them out of my head somehow. </p><p>p.s. The rating may go up later if I decide that I'm up to the task of writing space lizard sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "The First Thing I Need Is Blood"

Julie sometimes finds herself wishing that she could have encountered the Visitors under more favorable circumstance...that is when she’s not busy wishing she’d never encountered them at all. When she’s able to put forth the considerable effort to ignore all the suffering they’ve caused and view them from a purely scientific angle, their very existence is fascinating. To think that there’s a planet out there where reptiles beat primates to the top of the food chain. The possibilities are staggering, the implications profound. It makes her wonder just how many variations of this same phenomena there are out there in the vast infinity of the universe. 

Because of her innate scientific curiosity when they FINALLY manage to bring her a live specimen a deeply buried part of herself is elated. She hadn’t thought that she had any of her old pure, raw scientific curiosity left but beneath her surface relief that she will now FINALLY be able to make some headway in deciphering these things weaknesses, she feels it stirring. When she’s alone in the lab with the “specimen” she finds herself suppressing a sort of kid-on-Christmas-morning feeling. It’s entirely inappropriate for her to be at all happy right now. 

The others had objected to leaving her alone with it but she’d found the very idea laughable. It helped that Caleb (who apparently knows the thing) found it equally laughable.The thing is sitting on the examining table now, eyes downcast, hands shaking, draped in...really a ridiculous number of chains given how slight it is. It’s about as menacing as a kicked puppy. Anyway, she wants to see if she can get it to actually talk to her and has a feeling it’ll be more inclined to do so if it isn’t surrounded by glaring humans. She supposes she should probably start by calling it by it’s name; Caleb had referred to it as “Bill” and the woman it came in with had begged them not to hurt “Willy”... 

“William?” She says experimentally and is rewarded with a little flicker of recognition, it almost looks up at her face but then stops itself. Avoidance of eye contact seems to be a common trait among most of the lower ranking Visitors. She prods a little. “That’s your name, right?” 

“Yes.” It replies timidly under it’s breath. The sound of their voices still makes her skin crawl but she does her best not to show it. 

“Do you know why you’re here William?” 

“No.” It shakes it’s head frantically and gestures to itself as best it can despite the chains. “Am not important...they tell me small...little...they tell me little. Am of no good to you.” 

It takes a few seconds to process what the thing is saying and then it dawns on her that that’s unusual. 

“Why don’t you speak English as well as the others?” 

It looks irritated, as though this is a much loathed personal shortcoming that it’s sick of having others point out. 

“Got Arabic first...for going there. Put here on accident, got ‘screwed’ Harmony says.” 

Julie finds herself stifling a laugh and not just at the thing’s awkward use of a crude colloquialism. These things that were able to travel here from billions of light years away, infiltrate the world government and seize complete control of all media are still capable of making the sort of mistake that results from someone checking the wrong box on a form. They’re really not better than us, she thinks, and of course they don’t bother to fix the mistake because he’s no one important...she definitely believes him about that. In the time it takes her to compose herself the thing almost looks up at her but abruptly glances back down when she begins speaking again. 

“And what were you and ‘Harmony’ doing in the medical center?” 

It looks equal parts confused and frustrated, as though it knows the answer but can’t think of the specific words to convey it. Eventually it goes on tentatively. 

“Harmony is my...friend...haven’t gotten to see her much...we wanted to...be alone.” 

The thing’s voice gets quieter at the end and it looks off to the side. Julie gets the feeling that if it could blush it would be and then feels her own face get hot as it’s meaning dawns on her. 

“...oh.” Julie can’t help but wonder if the woman has seen her lover’s real face and can’t decide if it would be more or less disturbing if she has. While she’s lost in her mild shock the Visitor seems to have a realization of it’s own. Suddenly it looks right at her, an act which seems to require every shred of it’s bravery. 

“Please, let Harmony go! Knows nothing...done nothing wrong!” It’s shaking even more now and seems to be grasping at straws in it’s mind. “Is one of you...Human! You won’t hurt her...please.” 

“Of course we won’t.” Julie hastens to reassure the thing, mostly because she doesn’t like the pity it’s obvious panic is causing to well up inside her. “She’s a human being and we don’t hurt human beings if we can help it...If I were you I’d be more worried about myself right now.” 

The thing seems both relieved and sadly resigned. 

“Swear I don’t know anything.” 

“I definitely believe that you’re superiors haven’t made you privy to any important information.” 

“See.” It’s voice grows faintly hopeful. “No good to you...useless.” 

“Oh, you’re far from useless.” 

It doesn’t speak and doesn’t look up again but she can tell that it knows what she means from how it swallows hard and pulls it arms in closer to it’s body as though trying to keep warm (although with how drafty the hideout is and it being cold blooded it’s entirely possible it also is actually trying to conserve body heat.) 

“Since our movement was founded I’ve been working to develop a type of weapon that’s more effective against your people than it is against ours. I’ve done my best to infer your weaknesses from experiments done on creatures similar to you that can be found on earth but there doesn’t seem to be enough of a similarity for those to have produced any results.” 

It’s taking short rapid breaths through it’s nose now and Julie is suddenly uncomfortably conscious of the fact that what she’s about to say is the sort of thing you’d usually hear coming out of the mouth of a villain in a movie. She pushes on any way, it needs to be said. 

“I think it goes without saying that we will be using you for that purpose...it’s nothing personal but you’re the first one of your kind we’ve been able to get back here alive and for the sake of the greater good I can not pass up this opportunity. Now, William, if you cooperate I will feel a moral obligation to cause you as little discomfort as possible and to do you no lasting harm...but if you don’t...I can’t promise you anything.” 

There’s a long silence during which it seems to be weighing it's (lack of) options and when it speaks it's voice is quiet but steady. 

“If I co-op-er-ate...” It parses the word out as though saying it for the first time and trying to commit it to memory. “..you’ll let Harmony go.” 

The things unnatural inflection makes it impossible to tell if the last bit is a request or a demand. Either way, Julie’s response would be the same. 

“You really care about her don’t you?” 

“Yes.” There’s more conviction in that one word than in all the other things he’s said combined and Julie begins to feel guilt gnawing at her stomach. She hates herself for letting this thing make her feel guilty. 

“Look at it this way, you have my word that no one here is going to hurt her but how can you be sure no one out there will?” 

It looks at her questioningly without raising it’s head. 

“She’s seen us, she’s been to our base, she knows we have you. Don’t you think any of that information would be of interest to your superiors?” 

“Harmony won’t tell...” 

“Alright, let’s say, optimistically, that there’s no chance at all that she’d tell them anything. If they get even the vaguest suspicion that she knows something, they’ll try to MAKE her tell. If you tell me that’s not the case, I’ll know you’re lying and if you really care about her I know there’s no way you’ll want that to happen.” 

It opens it's mouth as though to refute her but then simply closes it. 

“She’s safer here than she would be anywhere else and if you cooperate I PROMISE that you’ll be safe here too.” 

“Why would you...promise?” 

“Believe it or not I don’t relish the thought of hurting anyone innocent and, maybe I’m being generous, but I don’t think you’ve ever intended to do anyone any harm.” 

“Go where they put me...do what they say...questions make bad things happen.” 

Julie could swear that she can hear shame in the the Visitor’s voice. 

“Believe me, I know.” It flinches when she takes a step towards it. This carnivorous space lizard that can spit acid is afraid of her, a five foot six, hundred and twenty pound woman who needs a cane to walk. She switches to a gentler tone as she goes on. “I can forgive you for being compliant up until now because I know what they do to people who resist them and I’m sorry for whatever it is they might have done to you to make you so...compliant but the fate of our planet is a stake. There’s no way you could possibly not understand that I have to put the well being of my entire species before yours.” 

The silence stretches on so long that she begins to think it’s not going to respond but then it does. It’s voice is barely audible. 

“Yes.” 

“Yes what?” 

“Yes...I will co-op-er-ate.” 

Julie doesn’t know why she feels so relieved but she does. 

“Good.” She makes her way over to right beside it and pulls the cloth off of the tray of tools she’s laid out for the examination. “The first thing I need is blood.”


	2. Iguana Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brief interlude between Willie and Julie some time between when Willie and Harmony were first captured and when the resistance was forced to movie to the movie set hideout.

Julie finds Willie frustratingly difficult to dislike. He hasn’t so much as given her a dirty look in all the time he’s been imprisoned here and in fact seems less concerned about the fact that he’s being held against his will than he is about ‘Harmony’ not wanting to see him. Being forced to betray his superiors doesn’t seem to bother him either, as though he was only obeying them because he’d never been offered any other options. There’s been so little inclination to escape on his part that by now most of the chains he’d come in wearing have been removed leaving only one that doesn’t do much to restrict him. She tells him that he’s not to leave the lab unless accompanied by her and he accepts this without question, as he has every other restriction placed on him. 

She’s let him start helping around the lab, in some capacity other than contributing samples that is. She tells herself it’s because being able to pass the more menial work off to someone else gives her more time to devote to developing the weapon but it’s also because he seems happier when he has work to focus on. They’re in the reptile room now and she’s explaining to him the he’ll be responsible for feeding them and cleaning the cages and explaining what that entails. When she finishes she looks over to find him staring into one of the cages...looking vaguely troubled. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“What...uh....are they?” 

The question catches her off guard. 

“Oh...you don’t have any creatures like this on your planet?” 

He shakes his head, looking at her as if she’s just implied something bizarre, and it dawns on her that what he’s experiencing now is something akin to her going to another planet and finding that the dominant species there keeps tiny, mute, four legged humans in cages. She decides it’s best to start off simple. 

“These are reptiles...the closest equivalent to you that’s native to our planet.” 

“They are like me?” 

He seems disturbed by the prospect so she decides she’d better elaborate. 

“That is, they’re the same species as you, it’s just that that species evolved differently here.” 

“What is ‘evolved’?” 

Julie’s beginning to feel like she’s opened a can of worms but it’s too late to go back now. 

“Evolution...it’s the process by which an organism begins as one thing and then...um...mutates in order to better survive in it’s environment.” 

It’s not a perfect explanation but she has a feeling that making it more complicated will only lead to more questions. Despite her best efforts, it leads there anyway. 

“How did that make them?” 

It seems strange that the Visitors could have grown so technologically advanced without ever learning about a thing like evolution. Then again, maybe WILLIE just doesn't know about it. Historically totalitarian regimes have tended to favor keeping their working class as ignorant as possible. Willie’s not stupid but there do seem to be a lot of strategically placed gaps in his knowledge. Apparently he’d been told that his people were on Earth for the water (JUST the water) and he seemed surprised to learn that that liquid is as vital to life on Earth as it is to life on his planet. 

“The most commonly accepted theory...” Julie tries to choose her words carefully. “Is that billions of years ago reptiles were the dominant species on Earth.” 

“Like me?” Willie cocks his head. 

“No...um...these ones were giant, larger than anything that lives on our planet now and...hopefully larger than anything that lives on your planet. They also weren’t very intelligent but were at the top of the food chain due to their sheer size. Our general term for them is dinosaurs.” 

She gives this a second to sink in then goes on when he only looks at her expectantly. 

“There’s some disagreement as to what exactly happened but it seems as though the temperature of the Earth at some point began to drop. Because the dinosaurs were so large and were also cold blooded, the drop in temperature lead to a mass die-off which only those reptiles that were able to evolve to be smaller were able to survive.” 

Julie gestures to the tank in front of Willie and he looks back down at the iguana inside as though he’d forgotten it was there. He reaches down tentatively to touch it and looks slightly hurt when it skitters to the other side of the cage. 

“That is a sad story.” He says without looking up at her. 

It’s times like this that Julie can see why Miss. Moore dotes on him the way she does. He’s strangely innocent, especially considering that he’s a member of a species that prefer to swallow their food whole while it’s still alive and conscious. She regularly asks him if he’s hungry but he keeps telling her that he’s fine. She can’t tell if he means it or if he’s deliberately avoiding eating in front of her and wonders how long she should let that go on. A crocodile can go up to three years without food if it has to. 

Since being told the truth about him and his people, Miss. Moore has avoided seeing him but still asks after his well being every time she sees Julie, requires constant reassurance that he’s not being hurt. Oddly even now that the whole situation has been explained to her she doesn’t seem angry or even afraid (at least not of Willie specifically.) In fact her avoidance of him seems to have more to do with her need to fully process everything she’s learned before seeing him again. She seems to want to fortify herself so that when she does see him she won't react to him in a way that might hurt his feelings. It seems strange to Julie that she should be worried about hurting HIM after all the time he’s spent essentially lying to her (a lie of omission is still a lie) but he seems to have found a woman who’s as strange as he is...they’re strangely perfect for eachother. 

Miss. Moore seems to be taking it for granted that Willie has probably never hurt a human being and thus would never hurt her. Julie found that foolish at first but after having spent time alone with him she takes it for granted as well. She sees none of the sly sharpness in him that she does in the most of the other Visitors. The other resistance members seem to have mistaken his lack of cold cunning for a lack of general intelligence but Julie has grown to know better. He absorbs and applies new information surprisingly quickly, he’s just not constantly looking for ways to use that information as a weapon. Considering how different English is from Arabic and how different both of those are from his own native tongue, it’s even kind of impressive that he speaks English as well as he does despite having had to learn it on the fly. 

“It wasn’t sad for primates.” Julie gestures to herself. “If the dinosaurs had stuck around we wouldn’t have been able to thrive and evolve the way we did...our planet might be something like yours.” 

“Oh...that would be VERY sad.” 

She tries to piece together exactly what he means by that and her confusion must show on her face because he elaborates. 

“Harmoney would not be here.” 

Julie can’t help but smile at that, he has a habit of saying things so sweet that they’d sound insincere from anyone else but from him they sound completely earnest. If she didn’t know for a fact that his blood is the color of antifreeze, she’d find it difficult to believe that he’s one of them. He goes quiet for an uncomfortably long moment, then she realizes he’s trying to read the label on the tank. 

“It is a...Gary?” 

“Um...no.” Julie laughs, the kids had recently come up with names for all the lab animals and used markers and masking tape to label their cages. “He’s an iguana.” 

“Oh.” Willie gives the strained smile of someone who doesn’t know rather to be amused or hurt. “Iguana Boy.” 

“...what?” 

“That is what the one with the glasses called me.” 

“He probably meant that as a joke.” Julie rolls her eyes but Willie only looks confused. “Yeah, it’s not very funny...it’s also inaccurate.” 

She points to the tank beside the iguana’s where a large, brown and white spotted lizard lays sprawled on a heat rock. 

“You’re more like Frank here, he’s a carnivorous savannah monitor lizard.” 

“Car-niv-or-ous?” 

“He eats...other animals.” 

“But not... ‘top of the food chain’?” 

“No.” Julie reaches out and runs a finger down Frank’s back, illustrating how harmless he is. “But if at just one point, billions of years ago one little thing had been different, he might have been.” 

She looks up and makes direct eye contact with the Visitor for the first time (or at least she would be if those were his real eyes.) 

“See, I think of evolution as more of a cautionary tale about how no one should get too arrogant about their place in the grand scheme of things because...on a scale of eternity, it’s all just...luck.” 

As expected the eye contact makes Willie uncomfortable and he looks back down at the monitor lizard. 

“He can not speak?” He shakes his head as he asks to indicate that he already knows the answer. 

“No, humans are the only creature on Earth that can do that.” 

“...then how do you know his name is Frank?” 

With that the tension that Julie had felt building dissolves completely and she finds herself laughing.


	3. If it's good enough for Captain Kirk...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Willie strips for Harmony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the purposes of my writing, the Visitors look less the way the did in the show (there was a reason they used those effects sparingly) and more like the Silurians in the newer seasons of Dr. Who.  
> So just imagine young Robert Englund made up like Madame Vastra.

Harmony Moore is not what most people would consider a squeamish person but she’s just learned that she draws the line at watching her boyfriend peel off his face. To her credit, she hadn’t looked away when he’d plucked out his eyes (his beautiful, pale green eyes) and calmly placed them on the table in the center of the room or when he’d pried out his teeth to expose the smaller, sharper ones underneath them or when he’d peeled the skin off both his hands, like removing a pair of gloves. When he’d used one of the retractable claws that she’d had no idea he had until just that moment to cut a ring around his own neck and then a slit up the back of his head and then started removing all the skin from his neck up in one piece she’d felt her stomach turn and had to look down. He doesn’t notice her looking away because he’s avoiding looking at her too, he’s worried about how she may be reacting. 

She can’t look at his face, not yet, but she watches his hands as he removes his shirt and begins cutting away the skin on his abdomen in neat sections and arranging it on the table (she assumes so that it’ll be easier to put back on.) He’d brought a towel with him and evaded the question when she’d asked what it was for. Now she can see that there’s a viscous fluid between the suit and his actual (green, scaly) skin, he uses the towel to wipe it off as he goes. She starts to wish they’d picked a different building to do this in. The one they’re in is still outfitted to look like an old west brothel which makes the whole thing feel lewd...it doesn’t help that he IS technically “strpping” for her. 

When they’d finally found the opportunity to go off alone together he’d been so nervous that she’d actually felt guilty for talking him into doing this. She’d relented and told him that they didn’t need to do it NOW, it could wait. After all, they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. To her surprise he hadn’t taken the out. 

“Only fair.” He’d said, shrugging. “I’ve seen you naked.” 

They’d both laughed nervously at that and then gone uncomfortably silent and then he’d began the apparently arduous process of removing everything about himself that had grown familiar to her. She’d assured him, back when she’d wanted to convince him that this was a good idea, that he had nothing to worry about and now she was regretting it because she wasn’t entirely sure that it was true. Of course she already knew she was in love with him, nothing short of him turning out to actually be a swarm of gnats in a human skin could change that, but love and physical attraction didn’t always go hand in hand. He was, after all, a different species than her so there was no guarantee that her body would react to his the way they needed it to. What if she didn’t feel anything? What if she was repulsed? She’d never heard of a romantic relationship surviving one half not wanting to touch the other. 

She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she didn’t fall in love with his looks. The costumes (she guessed was the word for it) of the higher ranking Visitors she saw on T.V. seemed to be designed to resemble...well, the sort of people you’d expect to see on T.V. Willie’s on the other hand seemed to be made to be more inconspicuous, not at all unpleasant but not really eye catching either. In fact at several points in their relationship she’d found herself feeling secretly grateful for the fact that his English wasn’t so good because if he hadn’t looked so desperately in need of help when she’d first seen him, she probably wouldn’t have noticed him at all. Sure, in time she’d grown to find him absolutely adorable but at first sight he was nothing special. 

When he sets about flaying the lower parts of his body she looks away completely. She understands now why the visitors remove their costumes so rarely, it’s more of a complicated setup than she had thought. Willie had tried to explain that to her on the walk here but the language barrier didn’t help. There’s no zipper or anything permanent like that, basically the only way to remove it is to tear it apart and then reassemble it back on the body when it’s time to put it back on. There are apparently tools for removing it that would have made the process easier but he doesn’t have any of those here. The constant little incisions necessary for the experiments they do on him have afforded her plenty of opportunities to see the suit repairs itself, the edges just sort of fuse back together like silly putty. She remembers how fascinating Dr. Perish had found it...and how she hadn’t been at all reluctant to touch it. 

The default assumption among most of the members of the resistance seemed to be that Willie had been ‘taking advantage’ of her and she couldn’t help but laugh at that, remembering how shy he’d been when she’d started pursuing him. At first he seemed not to know what to make of her attentions and even when he’d caught on the most he’d done was hint that he’d accept if she offered. That was him all over, receptive but not demanding. He defiantely hadn’t come to Earth with the intention of ‘conquering’ one of the native women. If either of them had been on the prowl at any point in their relationship, it had been her. 

She’d asked him out on their first date. On that date she’d learned that Visitor technicians aren’t paid anything...and have to ask permission to go anywhere on Earth except the plant...even when it’s on their own time. Willie didn’t seem to understand why this upset Harmony so much and apologised again and again for telling her. She tried to assure him that it wasn’t HIM she was mad at but from then on he was a lot less forthcoming with information. When they parted ways that night after the movie she’d given him his first kiss, though at the time she hadn’t known that was what she was doing. 

After two more dates he worked up the nerve to ask her why she kept ‘tasting’ him. At first she’d laughed, because she’d genuinely thought that he had to be kidding, and then she’d felt guilty for laughing. Apparently they didn’t do THAT on his planet. Looking back she’d supposed that should have made her suspicious...but there were cultures on Earth that didn’t kiss on the mouth (weren’t there?) Even if it was suspicious, it didn’t exactly scream ‘giant lizard’ so she wasn’t THAT stupid for not connecting the dots. Anyway at the time she’d found it amusing to think that she was teaching an alien to love...like Captain Kirk, amusing and...hot. 

Even after she explained kissing to him he still seemed a little taken aback by it, as though it were such a STRANGE thing for someone to want to do. He liked her though, so he would give it a try if it would make her happy. After that they started having their dates at her apartment. He could only leave the plant for four hours once a week. She’d take him to her place and they’d watch Star Trek and then they’d spend the next couple of hours ‘trying.’ 

It only took a few ‘tries’ for him to start to enjoy it. His tongue would have been difficult to miss but she’d naively thought that that would be the weirdest thing about his body. She’s nostalgic for that naivete as she finally looks up at him again. The blood drains from her face but she manages not to scream and keeps her expression neutral. She makes the mistake of glancing down at the table and vows to herself not to do it again, both for the obvious reasons and because when she looks at the empty mask lying there she feels a flaring of recognition that’s completely absent when she looks at the creature in front of her. 

His eyes are closed, which is good because she knows she’ll need to work her way up to making eye contact. He’s also very tense, as though he expects that at any second she’ll run screaming from the room, this makes her all the more determined not to do that. She rises, feeling shaky and light headed, and makes her way towards him in defiance of all her instincts. He shudders when she places a hand in the center of his chest. 

“Is it cold in here?” She asks, feeling guilty for not having even considered that. 

“No.” He gasps. “Just haven’t realized until now...how warm your hands are.” 

It occurs to her that this is the very first time she’s ever actually touched him and she feels herself blush. His skin isn’t TOO cold, in fact not much colder than it usually is, and she can already feel the flesh under her palm warming. She’s never been with a guy who likes to just cuddle quite as much as Willie does, it seems a little less romantic now that she know’s he does it just to borrow her body heat (ok...that’s probably not the ONLY reason.) She’d expected his skin to be dry and rough like an iguana but it’s actually more supple...like a boa constrictor. She slides both her hands up his chest (noting the absence of nipples) and places them on the back of his neck. 

His right hand twitches as though to reach out and touch her but he stops himself. Harmony feels a little pang of guilt at this and reaches down to take his wrist and place his hand on her waist. Her heart is hammering in her chest but she refuses to acknowledge that she’s afraid. This is Willie, sweet, gentle, soft hearted Willie...the nicest guy she’s ever dated. Even if he’s unrecognizable right now she knows he’d never hurt her. 

Summoning all her courage, she places her mouth against his. When he finally starts to kiss her it’s slow and tentative, as if he wants to give her ample opportunity to pull away. She’s relieved by how familiar this is. His real lips are more rigid than the ones on his mask but apart from that it’s almost exactly the same, it’s still unmistakably HIM kissing her. The inside of his mouth even tastes the same...a sort of earthy sweetness...like...carrot juice? Though now that she knows what they eat she supposes she should try not to think too hard about what she’s actually tasting, at least not if she wants to keep kissing him, which she definitely does. 

Harmony had planned on making that day in the medical center their ‘first time.’ She’s not an exhibitionist by any means but it had gotten so hard for them to see each other so she wasn’t sure when she’d get the chance again. At first she’d wondered if she’d have found out that day if they hadn’t been interrupted but then remembered that one of them had somehow impregnated Robin without the poor girl ever catching on. Then she’d wondered if Willie would have actually gone through with it...he’s genuinely remorseful for having had to lie to her for so long and even if he could he could have sex with her without taking the suit off, he’d probably have preferred to actually touch her. 

Judging by how his breathing has picked up, he’s enjoying touching her now. He runs his hands over her back, up and down her sides, through her hair but he doesn’t try to hold on to her. He’s still expecting her to ‘come to her senses.’ She doubles down and presses her body flush with his and is pleasantly surprised when that provokes a soft little purring noise in the back of his throat. He probably had to stop himself from doing that before. 

Suddenly his right arm coils around her waist and his left slides up into her hair. She feels the faintest little scraping of claws on her scalp and involuntarily gasps. Before she can even register him moving, he lets go of her and backs away almost to the other side of the room. 

“I am sorry.” He sounds absolutely wretched, as though he’s killed someone. She can’t help but laugh at the overreaction. The last little threads of her fear give way at the realization of how afraid HE is and she’s unable to resist the compulsion to comfort him. 

“It’s ok sweetie, you just startled me a little.” As she walks toward him she reaches up and runs her hand through her hair. “See, no blood or anything.” 

When she gets close enough she reaches and takes his right hand and examines it. The first thing she notices is that he has no finger nails, the second is that there are barely visible little slits in the tips of his fingers. He sees her looking at them and tenses his hand slightly, unsheathing his claws. They’re not horribly sharp, he’d actually have to exert pressure to do any damage. It makes her wonder how often he even uses them. Something occurs to her. 

“Willie...the others told me that Visitors can spit acid...is that true?” 

“...yes...but I try not to...tastes terrible.” 

“I can imagine.” She laughs and he relaxes a little. 

She finally brings herself to look at his face and is relieved to find that he’s not TOTALLY unrecognizable. His general features are still there but it’s just him as a lizard...or more accurately what she’s grown familiar with is him as a human. She’s going to have to get used to thinking of it that way, he didn’t ‘turn into’ this, this IS him. Feeling encouraged, she finally looks into his eyes. 

They’re probably the most alien thing about him and that’s saying a lot. The ‘whites’ are blood red, the irises are gold and the pupils are black slits splitting them vertically. The only way they could be less similar to human eyes is if they were in a different location on his face. Like before her reflexive impulse is to recoil but, like before, she doesn’t let herself. She feels his hand close around hers, the only effort he’s made so far to keep her near him. 

She brings her other hand up to the side of his face and he leans into the touch like a cat. So that’s like usual too. The eyes may not look familiar but they are familiar...if that makes any sense...they’re still HIS eyes. Even with their severe new coloring they’re still deep and gentle and just a little sad, just like they always are. 

Before she knows it she’s kissing him again, she doesn’t remember who initiated it but that doesn’t matter. She wraps her arms tight around his neck and delves into his mouth without hesitation. His arm returns to its place around her waist, gripping her more firmly than before. This tiny little show of confidence on his part is all it takes to set her heart racing. She wants it to happen, she wants it to happen now. 

“Take me.” She says without thinking as soon as their lips part. 

“W-where?” 

She stifles a laugh and begins unbuttoning her shirt. Realization dawns in his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't decide if I'm up to writing an actual sex scene between these two..it'll probably require me to do a google image search for "lizard penis."  
> Anyway if you're particularly keen on reading something like that, comment and let me know.


End file.
